The Shoulder, the System, and the Bullshit We Call “Healthcare”

Something is still incredibly wrong with my shoulders.

You know that little nubby bone that sticks up on top of the shoulder, right above the arm? Yeah — that one. My right one now sticks up about an inch higher than it should. Since the accident, the tissue around it has been tender in that deep, electric kind of way that tells you something structural is off.

Every day I try to hold my head up high and do for myself, and some days I nail it. Other days? Not so much. Like today — I finally managed to slice up summer sausage on my own. Two days ago I couldn’t even hold the knife steady. Progress, I guess.

But by the end of each day, my shoulder is so shot I have to lie down just to take the weight off it. That’s what exhausts me. That’s why I crash early. Both shoulders are screwed, but the right one is… extra screwed.

And here’s the thing: I honestly don’t know exactly what all was broken in the accident. Something tells me Brittney mentioned the shoulders at some point, but for whatever reason, the doctors haven’t been worried about it.

Well, I fucking am.

If they’re not going to do anything, then I guess I’ll have to. I’ll work it, daily, twice daily if I have to. I’ll build back the muscle that used to hold everything together. No, muscle doesn’t fix bone — but bone only heals with time and with competent medical attention.

Competent being the key word.

Because yes, I’m pushing this issue again as soon as the rest of me is stable. But right now?
I feel like I’m at the mercy of medical egos — people more interested in flexing their authority than solving the damn problem.

Here’s a fun little reminder of why I fucking hate the American medical system: It’s not the science. It’s not the capability. Modern medicine is amazing when practitioners actually focus on healing. The problem is the culture of blind compliance that dominates everything.

The attitude that shows up in phrases like, “You’re not supposed to…”
Excuse me?
Says fucking who?

Don’t ever tell me what I’m “supposed” to do with my own body. That’s a recipe for “fuck you” and a side of soup.

Doctors built the system this way — to keep control, to stroke their own egos under the guise of safety and procedure. And yes, I understand the scientific side: you need order, you need consistency, you need to know what intervention did what.

But blindly accepting anything is fundamentally anti-American. And pretending they care about my body more than I do? Laughable.

Last week, I finally caved and went to the clinic because apparently I now “need a primary care physician”. Never mind that I already see enough specialists to form my own small medical conference — the system requires a PCP to unlock basic shit like PT and OT.

Fine. Whatever.

So I sit down with this young male doctor, and he launches into the “over 50” checklist because that’s what his training taught him to do. Doesn’t matter that I’m there for my shoulder and knee — nope, what matters most is that I apparently need a colonoscopy, a lung cancer screening, and an A1C my endocrinologist already monitors.

He wasn’t concerned about the shoulder.
Or the knee.
You know — the things that are actually affecting my quality of life.

But I got his fucking checklist.

I’ll be going back this week. Something about squeaky wheels and grease.

Blind compliance — turns out even doctors do it when they’re young.

He had a checklist of things “50-year-olds should have done” and just shut off his ears to the patient sitting right in front of him.

And I fucking hate that.

I hate that Hollywood has put doctors on a pedestal. I hate that politicians followed suit during the pandemic. I hate that as a society, we have collectively stroked the ego of the entire medical community and whispered, “Yes, you are special.”

And look — I’m not saying doctors aren’t skilled. I’m not saying nurses aren’t overworked or that medicine hasn’t saved my life more than once. It has. And I am genuinely grateful for the moments when brilliance shows up.

But brilliance isn’t the norm. Ego is.

We’ve built an entire culture that trains patients to shut up and nod along. A culture that tells us to obey, not question. A culture where a doctor can ignore the two things I came in for — my shoulder and my knee — because a checklist told him my colon needs more attention than the parts of my body that literally keep me functional.

And that’s the part I can’t stomach anymore.

My body is not a checkbox. My pain is not an item on a workflow. And my recovery sure as hell isn’t going to be shepherded by someone who prioritizes the comfort of routine over the discomfort of listening.

So yes — I’ll be back. And I’ll be loud. Because the squeaky wheel isn’t just the one that gets the grease — it’s the only wheel that stands a chance in a system built on autopilot.

And maybe that’s the part they don’t like: I refuse to be compliant. I refuse to be quiet. I refuse to pretend this system is working when I’m living proof — literally broken bones and all — that it’s not.

The truth is simple: If I don’t advocate for my body, nobody else will. And if that makes me the difficult patient? Good. I’d rather be difficult than dismissed.